Before De-Planing, Check For Your Phone, Passport and Falcon

ByKatrina Brown Hunt

In the rush and jumble of getting off a plane that’s just landed, it’s not surprising if you absentmindedly leave your magazine tucked in the seat pouch, or neglect to notice that your favorite pen has dropped and rolled into another row.

But in a recent survey of 700 international flight crew members, travel search site Skyscanner discovered that travelers regularly leave behind a colorful, if not bizarre, array of items in their pursuit of prompt de-planing.

Some sundry items, one might assume, just fell out of a bag as folks took luggage out of the overhead bins—like an unpartnered shoe, an article of underwear or, well, handcuffs. But how exactly does one forget to grab one’s double bass, wedding gown, bag of diamonds—or a falcon?

Aside from the obvious inconvenience of misplacing your handcuffs mid-trip, plenty of folks have left behind essentials that could easily cripple a whole vacation: In the survey, nearly a quarter (24%) of crew members surveyed have found a lost passport on board, roughly the same percentage who found abandoned phones (23%). One can only imagine, of course, the problems associated with leaving other vital items behind: toupees, dentures and prosthetic limbs also made the list.